Revolutionizing information warfare...
When Westerners first began to hear of Vladimir Putin's troll army -- now some five years ago -- the project sounded absurd, David Frum reports on theatlantic.com.
President Obama in March 2014 had dismissed Russia as merely a weak "regional power," Frum wrote.
And Putin's plan to strike back was to hire himself a bunch of Internet commenters? Seriously?, he added.
In a recent talk in Washington, the historian Timothy Snyder observed that Russia's annual budget for cyberwarfare is less than the price of a single American F-35 jet, Frum noted.
Snyder challenged his audience to consider: Which weapon has done more to shape world events?
Clausewitz defined war as the use of violence by one state to impose its will upon another, Frum wrote.
But suppose new technology enabled a state to "engage the enemy's will directly, without the medium of violence," Synder writes -- this would be a revolution in the history of conflict.
This revolution, Snyder argues, is what Russia has imposed upon the United States and the European Union.
How, why, and with what consequences is the theme of Snyder's newest book, The Road to Unfreedom, Frum notes.
For more of a timely and fascinating report: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/the-great-russian-disinformation-campaign/564032/
Photo: theatlantic.com., nytimes.com.
Journalists listen to Vladimir Putin at his annual news conference in 2016.
When Westerners first began to hear of Vladimir Putin's troll army -- now some five years ago -- the project sounded absurd, David Frum reports on theatlantic.com.
President Obama in March 2014 had dismissed Russia as merely a weak "regional power," Frum wrote.
And Putin's plan to strike back was to hire himself a bunch of Internet commenters? Seriously?, he added.
In a recent talk in Washington, the historian Timothy Snyder observed that Russia's annual budget for cyberwarfare is less than the price of a single American F-35 jet, Frum noted.
Snyder challenged his audience to consider: Which weapon has done more to shape world events?
Clausewitz defined war as the use of violence by one state to impose its will upon another, Frum wrote.
But suppose new technology enabled a state to "engage the enemy's will directly, without the medium of violence," Synder writes -- this would be a revolution in the history of conflict.
This revolution, Snyder argues, is what Russia has imposed upon the United States and the European Union.
How, why, and with what consequences is the theme of Snyder's newest book, The Road to Unfreedom, Frum notes.
For more of a timely and fascinating report: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/the-great-russian-disinformation-campaign/564032/
Putin talking with RT staffers in Moscow in 2013.
Photo: theatlantic.com., nytimes.com.
Next time on The Allen Report:
The People's Authoritarian.
The People's Authoritarian.
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